Upstate NY socialite kept slave in closet for six years

Annie George, an insanely wealthy 39-year old widow from Rexford, New York, is going to trial this week for keeping an Indian immigrant woman as a slave in her gold-plated, 29-room mansion for more than 10 years. One would assume that someone that could afford gold plated ceilings could also afford to pay her maid, but apparently, she didn’t think that was so necessary.

The woman, Valsamma Mathai, states that she was picked up by George’s late husband at a bus station in 2006 and promised $1,000 a month for her services as a maid. However, after arriving at the mansion, where it was discovered that she did not have a work visa, Mathai was subsequently kept there and forced to work for no pay-cooking, cleaning and caring for six children up to 17 hours a day, seven days a week. Despite the fact that the mansion where George lived had 10 actual bedrooms, she slept each night in a closet in one of the children’s bedrooms.

It wasn’t until Mathai’s son called the National Human Trafficking Resource Center that she was rescued from the mansion. George has been charged only with “harboring an illegal immigrant,” which is pretty depressing. She of course insists that none of it is true and that Mathai did not even live there, which should be pretty easy to disprove.